 After 9 months of siege against Armenians in Artsakh (Nagorno Karabakh Republic), Azerbaijan unleashed an artillery and gunfire offensive against Artsakh civilians and military positions on September 19, 2023.
Oil-funded Azeri PR claims they launched the operation as an "anti-terror" effort, "in response to the deaths of six people, including four police, in two fatal landmine explosions on Tuesday morning" (BBC), and demanded Artsakh's surrender. The 100,483 Armenians of Artsakh, well aware of 30+ year history of Azeri aggression, chose to flee in a mass exodus of their ancestral lands rather than be subject to Azerbaijan's dictatorship and ethnic violence. Luis Moreno Ocampo, first chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, called on the world to call what happened in Artsakh by its proper name: genocide. See Washington Post article > The Armenian government took in all 100,483 refugees and assigned free housing and six months of government assistance to Artsakh families to aid in the forced transition. But the reality of the free housing available includes homes in villages with no running water, no indoor plumbing, mold-splattered walls and other poor conditions. Organizations like Hope Language Center in Agarak, Armenia and many others have been laboring to fill the many needs. In October-November 2023, Mark Tashjian joined the Hope Language Center team to deliver humanitarian aid in the form of wood bricks to keep warm during the winter and visit refugee families. |
RSS Feed